The Guts to Play Hurt

Penn State's football coach Joe Paterno says there's a difference between his players being hurt and being injured. Just looking at the sheer numbers of young people he sees come through his program in a year I figure he's witnessed both injured and hurt far more than most of us.

In other words, being stupid is never smart but persevering through tough times builds character and shows that not all goals get cast aside just because of personal comfort.

Hurt or Injured?

I'm not so sure I know the difference anymore. Cancer is not so easy to classify. It's just the cherry on the top of a number of years of declining health. I'm not injured, but I'm pretty well banged up and I'm not so much interested in playing.

Today I'm spending the day in bed, and that is, I'll admit, not so unusual anymore. What started out as being uncomfortable or in pain in the days surrounding my biopsy and surgeries has somehow changed over the past ten months to the point that I don't feel like I'm fit company for man nor beast.

The failed implant coming so soon after complications from a second surgery maybe was the turning point for me, or maybe it was just one more thing along the road that brought me to where I am. Add my dramatic reaction to the anti-tumor meds I started three weeks ago and it's just a really unattractive picture.

If this is a phase I'm ready for it to be over.

Flashback in time: As a naturally protective mom it was hard but I knew the importance of teaching my son to keep playing in the last third of a soccer game even when cramping muscles and feeling winded made him give me the "Mom, I'm dying" look. If the girls twisted a wrist in gymnastics, dance or softball, an ace bandage and some ice might be in order but the performance went on. Because character and commitment matter.

But I apparently didn't get the memo that it also works the other way and I need to just keep on keeping on as well. The last time I had dinner with someone outside my immediate family: March 2008. The last time I had lunch with someone outside my immediate family: August. It's not cancer that has turned me into a hermit. It's my reactions to it that have done the job. Today I just say "no" to invitations.

Could it be just too hard to face "normal?"

I can talk the talk but apparently I can't walk the walk.  My mom's been gone a long time and she was never much of a cheerleader anyhow. Is it fair to ask my own kids to turn the tables and drag me out? To make me keep on keeping on?

That's a hard burden to put on their shoulders. So I don't.  Besides, the eldest has not spoken to me in years, the second is tied up in her own life, the third is based across the country with a new wife, and the fourth has been stuck with being at home to play stand-in for the others during the past year. That's enough pressure for any one person, so expecting her to also be my cheerleader / coach / harassement officer is just not right.

While on one hand I'm glad my children are not young enough to have to deal with this when they can't understand it, I wonder if they can ever understand at any age? I wonder if it would be easier to be forced to get out of bed because they would at least need me if this had happened ten or fifteen years ago. But I don't have any of the answers.

Moms are supposed to know everything. Guess what; we don't.

I don't know how people who face uncertain futures and daily pain deal with months, years, decades. Is there a handbook some of us are lucky enough to have gotten ahead of time? Are some of us just tougher or better or smarter? I've got a lot to learn and I only hope I can do so gracefully.

As I wait for this phase to pass - or whatever happens next to just happen - I wonder how many other cancer patients have the same kinds of reactions. How many even acknowledge that these feelings exist? How many have courage to jump into everything they do with both feet and how many take the easier path of stepping back from "normal?"

There's good news though.

I'm not crying today. Not yelling at people nor overmedicating. I'm not oversleeping, drinking nor overeating. But it remains that I'm hurting and treading water.

I just keep thinking that if there's one thing I've learned it's that this too shall pass.

Or maybe I need JoePa to whip me into shape. Somehow, I don't think this malaise, disconnect, or whatever it is would fly at Joe's house.